[javascript] Convert NaN to 0 in javascript

Is there a way to convert NaN values to 0 without an if statement:

if (isNaN(a)) a = 0;

It is very annoying to check my variables every time.

How about a regex?

function getNum(str) {
  return /[-+]?[0-9]*\.?[0-9]+/.test(str)?parseFloat(str):0;
}

The code below will ignore NaN to allow a calculation of properly entered numbers

function getNum(str) {_x000D_
  return /[-+]?[0-9]*\.?[0-9]+/.test(str)?parseFloat(str):0;_x000D_
}_x000D_
var inputsArray = document.getElementsByTagName('input');_x000D_
_x000D_
function computeTotal() {_x000D_
  var tot = 0;_x000D_
  tot += getNum(inputsArray[0].value);_x000D_
  tot += getNum(inputsArray[1].value);_x000D_
  tot += getNum(inputsArray[2].value);_x000D_
  inputsArray[3].value = tot;_x000D_
}

<input type="text"></input>_x000D_
<input type="text"></input>_x000D_
<input type="text"></input>_x000D_
<input type="text" disabled></input>_x000D_
<button type="button" onclick="computeTotal()">Calculate</button>

NaN is the only value in JS which is not equals to itself so we can use this information in our favour

const x = NaN;
let y = x!=x && 0; 
y = Number.isNaN(x) && 0

We can also use Number.isNaN instead of isNaN function as latter coerces its argument to number

isNaN('string')        // true which is incorrect because 'string'=='string'
Number.isNaN('string') // false 

Using a double-tilde (double bitwise NOT) - ~~ - does some interesting things in JavaScript. For instance you can use it instead of Math.floor or even as an alternative to parseInt("123", 10)! It's been discussed a lot over the web, so I won't go in why it works here, but if you're interested: What is the "double tilde" (~~) operator in JavaScript?

We can exploit this property of a double-tilde to convert NaN to a number, and happily that number is zero!

console.log(~~NaN); // 0

Please try this simple function

var NanValue = function (entry) {
    if(entry=="NaN") {
        return 0.00;
    } else {
        return entry;
    }
}

using user 113716 solution, which by the way is great to avoid all those if-else I have implemented it this way to calculate my subtotal textbox from textbox unit and textbox quantity.

In the process writing of non numbers in unit and quantity textboxes, their values are bing replace by zero so final posting of user data has no non-numbers .

     <script src="/common/tools/jquery-1.10.2.js"></script>
     <script src="/common/tools/jquery-ui.js"></script>

     <!----------------- link above 2 lines to your jquery files ------>





    <script type="text/javascript" >
    function calculate_subtotal(){

    $('#quantity').val((+$('#quantity').val() || 0));
    $('#unit').val((+$('#unit').val() || 0));

    var  calculated = $('#quantity').val() * $('#unit').val() ;
    $('#subtotal').val(calculated);


    }
    </script>


      <input type = "text" onChange ="calculate_subtotal();" id = "quantity"/>
      <input type = "text" onChange ="calculate_subtotal();" id = "unit"/>
      <input type = "text" id = "subtotal"/>

Methods that use isNaN do not work if you're trying to use parseInt, for example:

parseInt("abc"); // NaN
parseInt(""); // NaN
parseInt("14px"); // 14

But in the second case isNaN produces false (i.e. the null string is a number)

n="abc"; isNaN(n) ? 0 : parseInt(n); // 0
n=""; isNaN(n) ? 0: parseInt(n); // NaN
n="14px"; isNaN(n) ? 0 : parseInt(n); // 14

In summary, the null string is considered a valid number by isNaN but not by parseInt. Verified with Safari, Firefox and Chrome on OSX Mojave.

Write your own method, and use it everywhere you want a number value:

function getNum(val) {
   if (isNaN(val)) {
     return 0;
   }
   return val;
}

Rather than kludging it so you can continue, why not back up and wonder why you're running into a NaN in the first place?

If any of the numeric inputs to an operation is NaN, the output will also be NaN. That's the way the current IEEE Floating Point standard works (it's not just Javascript). That behavior is for a good reason: the underlying intention is to keep you from using a bogus result without realizing it's bogus.

The way NaN works is if something goes wrong way down in some sub-sub-sub-operation (producing a NaN at that lower level), the final result will also be NaN, which you'll immediately recognize as an error even if your error handling logic (throw/catch maybe?) isn't yet complete.

NaN as the result of an arithmetic calculation always indicates something has gone awry in the details of the arithmetic. It's a way for the computer to say "debugging needed here". Rather than finding some way to continue anyway with some number that's hardly ever right (is 0 really what you want?), why not find the problem and fix it.

A common problem in Javascript is that both parseInt(...) and parseFloat(...) will return NaN if given a nonsensical argument (null, '', etc). Fix the issue at the lowest level possible rather than at a higher level. Then the result of the overall calculation has a good chance of making sense, and you're not substituting some magic number (0 or 1 or whatever) for the result of the entire calculation. (The trick of (parseInt(foo.value) || 0) works only for sums, not products - for products you want the default value to be 1 rather than 0, but not if the specified value really is 0.)

Perhaps for ease of coding you want a function to retrieve a value from the user, clean it up, and provide a default value if necessary, like this:

function getFoobarFromUser(elementid) {
        var foobar = parseFloat(document.getElementById(elementid).innerHTML)
        if (isNaN(foobar)) foobar = 3.21;       // default value
        return(foobar.toFixed(2));
}

Something simpler and effective for anything :

function getNum(val) {
   val = +val || 0
   return val;
}

...which will convert a from any "falsey" value to 0.

The "falsey" values are:

• false
• null
• undefined
• 0
• "" ^{( empty string )}
• NaN ^{( Not a Number )}